I (sort of) have a plan

My Eating Local Manifesto:

1. Eat only vegetables, fruits, meat, cheese,dairy, poultry, meat and fish raised or grown within
a 250 mi radius of Manchester, NH.
2. To learn more about the sources of the
grains I eat.
3. Drink coffee only from local roasters
4. Drink Tap Water.
5. Buy as much food as possible from
farmer's markets
6. When I eat out, pick restaurants known
to source most of their food locally if possible.
7. Eat out less, cook home more.

Exemptions:
Spices
Oils
Coffee (though will only purchase from local roasters)
rice
broccoli - because I love it. once a week.
meals prepared by others
meals prepared for houseguests
food purchased prior to 10/1/09 if it will go bad unless eaten.


Sources:

Eggs: Local farmers market, A-market or Nellie's Nest

Seafood: fresh available in Boston and Portland, can be frozen. Eat seafood at least 3 x week

Butter: Kates Handmade Butter

Dairy: Local farmers market, Stonyfield Farms, Cabot Creamery
Chicken/Meat: A-Market, Local farmers market

Vegetables/fruits - Local Farmers Market, A-Market, Macks apples

Coffee: Green Mountain or New England Coffee. Also see what A-Market has

Alcohol: Local beer available

Bread: bake my own whenever possible, or only buy local

Pasta: only homemade

Flour: no local sources, will purchase only King Arthur

There may be more to add, but I am breathing a BIG sigh of relief that I am in better shape than I thought.

I reserve the right to step out of this challenge if it compromises my commitment to losing weight and exercising!

Deadline

I am not ready for the challenge!! Or, maybe I am, and I just don't realize it? I wanted to plan this much better than I have - and I didn't. I guess it will be what it will be. Right now there are so many things that need my attention and I am on overload. The best thing I can do right now is sleep. I can do this!!

Something fishy...

Decided to google some local options for fresh local fish. There are a couple of options in Cambridge I will check out when I am down there visiting Cindi. And a couple more in Portland, ME I will check out when I visit the family later this month. I figure I can bring a cooler and buy enough for a couple of weeks, which when you think about it, for one person won't be alot really. Here are the places I will be looking at. If you know anything about any of them, please share!

Browne Trading Company - Portland, ME
From the website, it looks like they only sell large poundage/whole fish. Not interested in cleaning fish!! I'll go check them out anyway.

Free Range Fish - Portland, ME
I can't wait to check this place out, from what I see on the website they have everything I am looking for - scallops, clams, and haddock - all local!

Harbor Fish Market - Portland, ME
This one looks promising as well

New Deal Fish Market - Cambridge, MA
No info on their website, will check them out soon.

Courthouse Seafood - Cambridge, MA
looks to be near New Deal, same day

Mercato del Mere - North End, Boston
This place looks AWESOME!! I think I know where me and Cindi are
having dinner next week - somewhere in the North End so I can check this
place out. I am certain I can bribe her with the promise of a box of cannolli's from Mike's.

I realized today that I am kind of under the gun here to pull this off. Oops. But, that is typically how I operate - think about everything for a very long time then do all the actual work at the last minute and it all works.

I think I have seafood/fish covered. Meat and chicken options are available at a local market, and I am going to stock up at the farmers market over the next 5 weeks. And there will be plenty of eggs and cheese. And yogurt. So I have protein covered.

Next I will be moving onto grains and pasta! Can you stand the excitement peeps?

Bread...no Salt

So I had this whole post planned about bread and what my plans are for the Eat Local Challenge...

Instead, I am thinking about how unsatisfying today's meals have been. For some reason, I was extra hungry today. I did not plan well for this. Breakfast was yogurt and Kashi. I did eat it about an hour earlier than normal, which may explain why at 11:00 I was ready to raid my lunch bag. Instead, I grabbed one of my "emergency" rations - a Spring Onion Noodle Bowl. It was mediocre to say the least, and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. And it was salty.

Moving onto lunch. Part One was a chicken pesto Lean Cuisine. It wasn't bad, I'd have it again. Again though, salty!

The salad I threw together, at 4:30, that was the best thing I ate all day!

For dinner, I decided to have this shrimp stir fry in a bag thing that has been in my freezer for a month or so. As I was preparing it, I realized that I could have made my own shrimp stirfry and it would have been MUCH better than what I am eating now. Which is SO SALTY!! And then there is all the packaging - 4 plastic bags inside one large bag. And nothing local. Had I made this from scratch, the shrimp, carrots and peas would have been local. Which made me realize that one of the staples of my diet, stir-fry, is going to be very different come October. No soy sauce for starters. I want to keep my exceptions list to a bare minimum.

Anyway...today I learned that I need to buy ALOT less packaged food. I see this all in one bag stir fry and think, wow, how convenient! But...I used more dishes than I would have if I started from scratch, and my veggies would have had alot more flavor. Not to mention how much bigger the shrimp would have been!

Bread - something to ponder this weekend - hoping to actually make some!!